Why did small business owner and gamer dad Mike Hoye spend the last few weeks hand-tweaking the text in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker so that the main character was referred to as a girl instead of a boy? As he put it, “I’m not having my daughter growing up thinking girls don’t get to be the hero.”

Hoye and his three-and-a-half year old daughter Maya have recently been playing Wind Waker together, but Hoye was bothered by the fact that even players who change the protagonist's name to something other than "Link"—which the game allows—always get addressed as though they are male. The main character is always referred to with words like “master,” “my lad,” and “swordsman.” Because Hoye's daughter can't yet read, Hoye has been reading the on-screen dialogue aloud to her and diligently transliterating the gendered language from male to female on the fly as they traverse the game's Great Sea together.

To make this process smoother, Hoye eventually decided to hack away at the actual text of the story, producing a female-oriented version by altering the game's data files. According to his blog post on the project, Hoye took a GameCube disk image (.GCM) of Wind Waker and dug into it with a hex editor. He changed all story text and dialogue by hand, then tested his work by playing the game file in the Dolphin GameCube emulator.

The modifications proved a bit tricky, since the new female-oriented wording had to be a byte-for-byte alteration of the original; even throwing in "she" in place of "he" would mess things up. So Hoye got creative, using words like “milady” in place of “my lad” and “master."

“Sentences need to be changed or reworded just because 'young lady' is one character longer than 'young man,' line breaks need to be in about the right places, that sort of thing,” Hoye told Ars via e-mail.

The gendered storyline that Nintendo gave Wind Waker wasn’t inappropriate; Link is, and always has been, a boy. But if parents want to introduce their daughter to video games, there’s a noticeable shortage of good female main characters to round out the experiences, stories, and situations that unfold. Furthermore, no one should have to deny their daughters a healthy education in the wonders of Zelda because male-oriented text might deal a blow to girls' sense of self-worth.

Would playing Wind Waker as a male protagonist really cause problems for Hoye's daughter? Hoye doesn't know and says he "probably can’t know. I did this because playing through Wind Waker is something my daughter and I like doing together, and because I think Maya deserves to have the game address her as herself. She's not an NPC, and Dad's favorite pastime shouldn't treat girls like second-class citizens.”

Not that such changes are simple. Hoye told Ars that the changes took about “two or three solid days of work, an hour or two at a time over the last few weeks.”

Hoye has made the changes available as a patch to the Wind Waker .GCM file, which must be applied using a tool called "xdelta3," he writes. The modified game needs to be played within the Dolphin emulator, but Hoye speculated to us that it might be possible to burn the game back onto a disc such that it would be compatible with the console again. In any event, Hoye now has a female protagonist for Wind Waker—and you can see the results of his work above.

Promoted Comments

As a male, for the longest time I never but much consideration into these things. When I had my first child, for a while we thought it was going to be a girl (Turned out to be a boy). During that time I started looking at my hobbies and ways to encorperate a girl into them and found how much is overlooked for young girls.

There are almost no female superheroes sutible for a small girl, and of the few there are, there is NO merchandise for. Unless she wants to be a princess there aren't many videogame options for a young girl either.

This is one of those things that once I've seen, I can't unsee it. I notice this gap in almost everything my son gets interested in, and it really bothers me. We own dozens of little superhero squad/ DC universe playschool figures and the only woman I can even find to buy is Catwoman.

I'm glad this Dad found a way to tilt the scale a little.

1 post | registered Nov 8, 2012

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

390 Reader Comments

Does he also rewrite books and pen over the gender in them too? Artistic integrity and vision of the creator? Nope. This guy is a nutcase extremest.

If this is all you have to write about Casey your privilege has got your head so far in the clouds you can't see 5 feet in front of you. So now just having a story about a guy is "treating woman like second class citizens" Don't you see that saying something like that is treating men like 2nd class citizens? A game about them is so dirty so vile and evil that it is *inherently wrong* and makes everything else around it "worse". Are you kidding me Casey?

I will write an extensive comment later but have to do a couple things first.

Video games are different than books.

Also, you realize you are quoting the dad from the story and attributing it to Casey?

Perhaps I should dedicate some time to rewriting Anna Karenina to be more approachable to young men. Granted it is a masterpiece of it's genre, but I did occasionally have trouble relating to the travails of the young woman.

I would argue that having a child play from a variety of points of view that are disparate from their own is probably a good thing. At worst, it's harmless. Certainly, playing as Jade or Lara had no detriment to my development as a young man.

Granted, Link's gender has little bearing on the plot, but that simply serves to make this man's work even more irrelevant.

This seems a bit excessive. I don't see why someone would change Lara to Larry Croft, or patch Goldeneye to play as Jane Bond. The games are simply too tightly intertwined with the character in question.

Contrast this with, say, Mass Effect, which has a fantastic implementation of gender-neutrality - it doesn't affect the game or the storyline in the least.

There could certainly be more heroines in games, but I don't think it's fair to lambast Zelda for not providing one.

That just means you don't know anything about child or identity development. What that girl experiences in her first years determines who she is for the rest of her life, how her mind processes inputs, how she views the world around her. Taking extra steps to make sure she develops a sense of self worth is important.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's objectively "getting out of hand."

I don't think that anyone who knows anything about child development would claim with certainty that the gender of a fictional character in a fantasy game has some kind of long-lasting effect on a girls self-worth. Not even the father in this article makes any such claims.

In general though, I don't think existing games should be changed. In Zelda you are controlling a pre-existing character in a story (Link). It's not like other games where the character is supposed to be "you" such as in an MMO or any other game where you create your own avatar.

To me it feels like rewriting classic "stereotypical" fairytales just to change the gender, it feels wrong. That said, nothing wrong with punching out more games/stories with a strong female lead. I could go for a Zelda game where you play as Zelda herself (and I don't mean the horrible CDI games!)

Frankly I love the Brönte sisters' literature but always felt left out and discriminated against because their heroines are well... female... while I am not, so I am in the process in rewriting Jane Eyre, only switching the gender...

John Eyre, soon in all good book shops...

Very quixotic attitude, it's as touching as it is useless and misguided, there are far more pressing things to fix in regard to society's attitude toward gender.

Quantity of female game characters is less of a problem than design of female game characters.

And yeah, I wouldn't do this, but he did it, and had fun, and his daughter likes it, and who is he hurting? Link's gender has very little to do with the story in this particular game (maybe OoT had some boy-girl stuff, can't remember, most of them don't). In an open world game where you name your character, there should be more options to pick either gender. Zelda is mostly open world.

Question for Ars' resident copyright writers... does what the father in this story did violate copyright law? There was a company that edited Hollywood movies to make them more 'family-friendly' by editing out cursing and nudity/sex. People like Spielberg attacked that as hurting the artistic integrity of the original movie and IIRC, the service got shut down.

Nintendo would be attracting the wrong kind of PR if it did go after this guy for editing and then sharing that edited copy of their copyrighted game, but legally, would they be able to do so?

Censoring another's work is not the path to greater good. It's certainly cute, and is the act of a caring father. In that context this is fine and dandy.

But I think that copying a work and making a superficial change is weak in the broader cultural sense.

If you want a female hero, changing Jesus, changing Beowulf, changing Chrono, is that really the way?

I hate the idea that men and women are interchangeable. A person's gender is part of their identity, and arbitrarily changing the gender of a character in a story is lazy, clumsy, and neglects so many subtleties and intent of the artist that it borders on arrogance to claim you are doing it right.

Please understand that I don't believe this position implies that I don't believe men or women somehow have predetermined places in society, etc etc. I just don't believe we are interchangeable, especially in contexts of interpersonal interaction.

Considering that all the best Link cosplay seems to be done by girls anyway, this is actually kind of fitting.But yeah - That dad totally gets mad props for changing hard-coded text in a game all for his little girl! That sounds grueling.

Question for Ars' resident copyright writers... does what the father in this story did violate copyright law? There was a company that edited Hollywood movies to make them more 'family-friendly' by editing out cursing and nudity/sex. People like Spielberg attacked that as hurting the artistic integrity of the original movie and IIRC, the service got shut down.

Nintendo would be attracting the wrong kind of PR if it did go after this guy for editing and then sharing that edited copy of their copyrighted game, but legally, would they be able to do so?

He's not selling the edited result as an unedited version of the original or a replacement, just distributing a patch for people who wish to do the same to their game. They are doing the final "editing" themselves by applying the patch to their so obviously legal ROM they have dumped themselves. Probably in the clear.

How about just letting your daughter decide whether she wants to play a game with a male persona instead of shoehorning her into her pre-defined gender role?One of my daughters raised money and went to space camp. The other one entered beauty pageants. Those were their choices, not mine.

Let me prefix my post by saying that I think a father going to this level of effort for his daughter is to be admired. I think our society would be better off in countless ways if more parents spent this much time with their kids.

Zelda is a story, just like other games. Many stories feature male heros, if that bothers you, play other games and vote with your wallet. Play Tomb Raider, or some other RPGs that respect selected player's gender. See also -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fe ... rs_by_role

I've got to agree with those who are saying this seems a bit silly and unappreciative of the artistic integrity of the work.

I'm the biggest liberal there is, but this just seems really unnecessary.

Maybe instead of doing something so superficial he should have taken up teaching her some programming or at least how to use a code editor so she could have edited all the male pronouns into female pronouns herself if he really wanted to empower her.

The three year old who can't yet read should hex edit the pronouns such that the phrasing ends up matching the original byte size and formatting? I'm all for teaching kids how to code but I suspect you didn't fully consider your suggestion.

This also has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. Dad produced a labor of love for his daughter then shared it with everyone. I don't see the problem.

What the man did is top-notch. 'Zelda' is always a favorite with kids, but it was always burdened with "princess in the castle" mythos. Fortunately Link is fairly androgynous and many of the female gamers learned to ignore that he was always referred to as male; the lack of any true romantic subtext between Zelda and he certainly helps. Link is a hero's hero, doing what (s)he does because it's the right thing, not because (s)he is infatuated with Zelda.

But there are plenty of good female rolemodels in modern games; role-playing games in particular have seen a strong trend towards female lead characters that aren't represented horribly. There has been more attention paid to creating good female leads that are actually decent rolemodels as more and more women enter the gaming world.

This is really about the accessibility of the fantasy for everyone. I don't get particularly incensed about the fact that modern fantasy writing has a lot of female heroines. I admit to a bit of concern that most of them seem to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on the men in their lives rather than the true concerns of their world, but when you consider that most of these authors are women it's hard to muster up outrage.

Nice job. Personally I wouldn't see myself using this (to be fair I don't have a daughter, so I don't know how that would influence me), but user created mods and the community is something I absolutely love. If this makes a better experience for only 1 other person then it is well worth it.

As the demographics of gamers change, so to will the characters which game developers create. For example, many games now allow the player to create a male or female character, as well as customize the character's physical traits. I just hope game developers don't go overboard with this. It's perfectly fine to have a main character with a set sex.

I also find the choice of changing Link's sex a bit strange given that latter entries in the series give Zelda and other female characters a more prominent, independent role, rather than merely being a helpless damsel in distress. In OOT, Zelda masqueraded as some kind of ninja (Shiek), often helping out Link. In Twilight Princess, Midna played an active role in helping Link in his quest, and she came across as a very strong character, IMO. While the Skyward Sword Zelda was a bit helpless, Shiek seemed to be more on top of things when it came to physical strength and protecting her. I haven't played Wind Waker, so I have no frame of reference for that game.

I've got to agree with those who are saying this seems a bit silly and unappreciative of the artistic integrity of the work.

I'm the biggest liberal there is, but this just seems really unnecessary.

Maybe instead of doing something so superficial he should have taken up teaching her some programming or at least how to use a code editor so she could have edited all the male pronouns into female pronouns herself if he really wanted to empower her.

The three year old who can't yet read should hex edit the pronouns such that the phrasing ends up matching the original byte size and formatting? I'm all for teaching kids how to code but I suspect you didn't fully consider your suggestion.

This also has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. Dad produced a labor of love for his daughter then shared it with everyone. I don't see the problem.

Maybe I'm missing something, but if she can't read then what's even the point of the mod?

I personally believe a child is never too young to start learning how the world works. Like I said, I'm sure this father could have found much better ways to truly empower her.

Not that I'm saying there's something wrong with what he did, just that it seems rather ineffectual and pointless compared with things he could be doing if he really wants to empower her.

I would imagine books are a bit different than video games. Video games are visual and interactive, children especially submerge themselves into that world and into those characters (or at least I did).

But that 'submersion' affect the player in real life? Would a player submerging himself into game with a female avatar feel more feminine? Would a player submerging herself into a game with a male avatar have her sense of self-worth affected by the game?

If you say, 'yes', that's precisely the same line of reasoning used to claim that videogames are more dangerous/more likely to create killers than other forms of entertainment because of how immersive/interactive/realistic they are. Which, IMO, is a bullshit argument that has also been rejected by the courts.

I don't have any problem with someone modding a game to change anything.

The one execption I do take is the idea that not playing a certain gender in a story somehow means the player is being treated like a "2nd class citizen." I think that was a poor choice of words and just simply isn't true. There are many great games that have female main characters and many more games that allow the player to choose.

Let me say this up front: I don't have kids despite years of trying. I would really love to have a daughter to teach every tech-related "geeky" thing I can, and teach her to be very analytical in her approach to life, and generally independent.

I would also teach her that men and women should be treated as equals, and that when telling stories, sometimes the main character is a man, and sometimes it is a woman. I would even encourage more stories with female leads, and more games to allow for both genders to take the role of protagonist.

I would *never* agree with changing someone else's original artwork to appease some self-righteous goal of raising my daughter with self respect - that's *my* job, not a video character or actor on the screen. Kids might identify with characters on screen more if they are the same gender (I am still this way myself), but most parents remain the primary role model for children. It isn't about how some video game character acts on screen but how parents raise and treat their own children that defines who they will be when they grow up.

A move such as what this article mentions could be interpreted as a very "anti-men" mentality that would urge more people to replace every male lead with a female role, which is not exactly what equality in sex is all about. I'd rather think most people see this for what it truly is: a symbolically nonsensical waste of time.

Now where's my editing software so I can replace all images of Luke Skywalker with a female lead so I can experience an incestant lesbian kiss on screen....

Does he also rewrite books and pen over the gender in them too? Artistic integrity and vision of the creator?

I'm sympathetic to this reasoning, but with games, it's a little muddier because the intent is usually to allow the user to "become" the character. I could see where it's harder to identify with and immerse yourself in a character of a different gender.

I guess it would depend upon the intent of the game's author.

As in books, the gender of the main character plays a role in the story and how others characters interact with them. Franchises as old as Zelda came to be at a time when the vast majority of gamers were male. today we are seeing more girls and women playing video games which is why games like Mass Effect and Skyrim give the player the option of plying a female character. The whole gender issue liberals seem to have exists only in their heads. Game developers target both genders these days. There is no legit reason to mess with classic game characters like this except to appease bored liberals.

I suppose that it's cool the dad is doing this for his daughter, though at 3 1/2 I doubt she would really notice. I'm also curious what a child that young could get out of playing a videogame like Windraker anyway, does playing it together basically mean she watches the dad play or he holds the controller and lets her hit buttons from time to time? (I haven't played Windraker, but it looks to be your average platformer style game, does a kid that young have the coordination to do anything other than run right off the edge of whatever the character is supposed to be standing on?)

I also find the choice of changing Link's sex a bit strange given that latter entries in the series give Zelda and other female characters a more prominent, independent role, rather than merely being a helpless damsel in distress [Zelda, Sheik].

I haven't played Wind Waker, so I have no frame of reference for that game.

++ Wind Waker has both the 'damsel in distress' and a strong, capable female character.

The Zelda games have had other capable females too - Impa and the personal guard of the main series baddie is all female (who are not scantily-clad, eye-candy).

I let my daughter pick the gender of genderlessly drawn characters in the books we read, and change the pronouns on the fly.

I completely appreciate what this father has done, and I wholeheartedly applaud him.

Video game makers please take note.

EDIT:I noticed I'm getting some down votes. Let me say that I didn't start out doing this originally, but when she started to talk, I realized that she had already integrated that the male pronoun is the default pronoun. That her own gender wasn't the one to be assumed.

If we gave her a new stuffed animal, it was a boy. "Do you like your new elephant?" "Yes, he is soft."

When she pointed to birds in the sky, they were boys. "What is that bird doing?" "He is flying."

So, I changed. When things didn't need to have a gender, I let her pick. She now doesn't assume the male dominated mind set. I am proud of that.

How about just letting your daughter decide whether she wants to play a game with a male persona instead of shoehorning her into her pre-defined gender role?

I like this. This explains how I feel without pissing off the masses.

We choose our own hobbies, why are we suddenly surprised when they don't always match up against other people? My wife also likes videogames, she plays The Sims, facebook games, and MMO's. If i took Battlefield 3 and changed the main character to a female-relateable female she's still not going to give a shit In the same vein I wouldnt suddenly load up viva pinata if you could plant strippers in the garden.

I think it'd be offensive to either of us if something like this was commercially done, as it would be pandering and reductionist to think the reason its not interesting to us is the gender of the protagonist.

A lot of talk about (predefined) gender roles, artistic integrity, character design, etc.

I read this story and thought.

'Wow. A dad is using his own time and effort to do something special for his little girl so she can share a hobby with him as she grows up. In fact, as she grows up and realizes what he did I bet she will be really touched by the time and effort he put into doing something special for her and build a strong father/daughter bond'

I didn't get the impression the man was out for a crusade (though he certainly has an opinion on gender in games I agree with) or trying to overturn an industry singlehandidly while creating a fuss in forums/news article/protests/petition Nintendo with threats to boycott and calling them names/etc. He just used his talents to benefit a family member and made it available online for anyone who wants to make use of it.

He made his daughter a present, something he thinks she will appreciate and relate to. Something he can talk to her about (especially as she apparently already likes Zelda games).

Is there an emoticon thing starting as a slow clap that gradually builds up into massive applause? This man deserves this.

Edit: I math goodly. Wait...thats not right...I English gudly....better

Context is being thrown out of the window by some people. The man changed the gender words in a game so maybe his three year old girl can relate to the hero a little more. He also expressed desire that games accessible to younger children might have more female leads.

This guy isn't shouting that Nintendo is sexist and Link is anti-women. He isn't trying to get all the video game companies to change their characters to be both male and female. He certainly isn't on a soapbox, so everyone can put away theirs. Relating this to changing the genders of characters in various narratives, especially ones intended for adults, is a red herring. The Legend of Zelda games for the most part do not have narratives the rely heavily on the sex of the hero, and changing Link's gender is not tearing down the entire foundation of Hyrule.

Clarification: I want to expound on my final sentence. Changing Link's sex for the personal consumption of this game by two people is not attempt to permanently change the Zelda series. I didn't mean to refer to changing Link's sex for the franchise.